The royalists (including Chateaubriand) spread the rumor that Napoleon took lessons in how to appear "majestic." The implication was that he needed to learn how to act in the royal courts, since he didn't belong to this social class. The artist shows him mimicking Talma's stance in a grotesque way. The revolutionary Pierre Alexandre Lemare echoed this mockery, saying: "What would Talma say to see me still walking like a civilian, me who took lessons of grace and imperial dignity?"

Scanned from original drawing in RGB at 200-400 dpi, saved in TIFF format, changed to indexed color, enhanced and resized using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2006.